Tognar visualization dude. Is there an easy library that helps put together stuff like that or is it custom? On mobile so can't inspect.
Inspecting it shows that D3[0] and CARTO(.js)[1] are being used.
[0]: https://d3js.org/
Pittsburgh Bus Bunching (2016)
11–20 of 64 posts
Re: Pittsburgh Bus Bunching (2016)
#12Naive question: when buses are bunching, can't the front bus skip stops that are not needed for dropoffs? (the driver would have to announce that passengers need to request their stops of course).
Do they really stop everywhere unconditionally? In the UK almost all stops are by request, for both boarding and alighting.
Re: Pittsburgh Bus Bunching (2016)
#13Pittsburgh is a super interesting city from a transportation logistics and efficiency perspective. It's got an extremely difficult topography mixed with a rather obstinate electorate that has routinely de-prioritized mass transit. This particular piece emphasizes what anyone who attended CMU could tell you - if you're going to take the 62C anytime during rush hour, you better learn to hold your breath.
61C, and it will come sooner or later at rush hour, but there's no point in looking at the schedule.
Re: Pittsburgh Bus Bunching (2016)
#14On a tangental note, another HN user posted another visualisation a few months back which I quite enjoyed:
Why do buses bunch?: http://setosa.io/bus/
Re: Pittsburgh Bus Bunching (2016)
#15Naive question: when buses are bunching, can't the front bus skip stops that are not needed for dropoffs? (the driver would have to announce that passengers need to request their stops of course).
Ah this is an interesting idea. Passengers already have to request when they want to get off. I'm assuming you mean if no one wants to get off, a bunched up bus skips a stop because a bus behind it says "I'm behind you, I'll take this stop."
That would mostly work, but the problem in Pittsburgh at least is the bus bunching happens between related but not quite identical routes. For example, the 61A, 61B, 61C, and 61D all run down Forbes Ave, and frequently get bunched there. But then later in their routes, they fork: two go one direction, and two go the other direction. For many passengers, it doesn't matter which one they take. But for other passengers, it has to be a 61A etc.
Re: Pittsburgh Bus Bunching (2016)
#16Naive question: when buses are bunching, can't the front bus skip stops that are not needed for dropoffs? (the driver would have to announce that passengers need to request their stops of course).
Do they really stop everywhere unconditionally? In the UK almost all stops are by request, for both boarding and alighting.
As another comment noted, even if the stops aren’t unconditional the probability that no one will pull the cord for any particular stop on a crowded bus is near zero.
Re: Pittsburgh Bus Bunching (2016)
#17Its striking how much less bunching there is on the two routes (P/G) that operate in exclusive right-of-way.
Re: Pittsburgh Bus Bunching (2016)
#18Love this. I’ve experienced bus bunching in several cities at this point (LA, DC, and now Seattle). It seems to be a known failure mode of metro transit planning. First step is understanding what your problem space looks like. Curious to know what anyone here thinks could be a solution. I doubt skipping stops is one. I suspect that speed controls are probably the way to go.
Edit: kudos to doing this in R. I’ve done other city analysis stuff in R and I keep coming back to it for one off things like this.
Re: Pittsburgh Bus Bunching (2016)
#19Naive question: when buses are bunching, can't the front bus skip stops that are not needed for dropoffs? (the driver would have to announce that passengers need to request their stops of course).
The real issue is that the BACK bus needs to pass the front bus and move ahead a couple of stops.
Pittsburgh, however, as an unusual misfeature in that the single bus lane goes the wrong way against one way traffic (3 lanes of cars going one way--1 lane of bus going the opposite) for a non-trivial amount of length flagged as "hotspots".
This means that while automobile drivers using the bus lane is a self-correcting problem, a bus cannot pass another bus in those areas.
(I call the wrong way bus lane a "misfeature" because it regularly results in out-of-towners winding up dead because they didn't look both directions on a "one way" street. This is particularly tragic when the out-of-towner is someone who is visiting Children's Hospital because their child is being treated for some very aggressive disease.)
Re: Pittsburgh Bus Bunching (2016)
#20> how do we make this better?
Just teach the bus drivers to let the empty busses overtake the crowded one.
It won't solve the pauses when there will be no bus coming, but at least it increases the passenger comfort by a good margin and the average speed by which the bunch travels increases too.